A couple weeks ago I had a chance to talk with James Jean about his new book REBUS which comes out this fall, and thanks to my generous friends at Chronicle Books I have a signed copy to give away to one of you!

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JAMES JEAN INTERVIEW / REBUS GIVEAWAY

If I came out to LA to visit for a day, where would you recommend I go for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Jeff, you will begin your day by having breakfast in bed with me, then El Taurino for lunch, and finally Gjelina for dinner. We will retire to my place to look at some fine etchings. If you play ball, you can enjoy croissants and fresh squeezed juice again the next morning.

Haha breakfast in bed first! Like the first date in Annie Hall when Woody Allen asks for his kiss before they eat so he can actually enjoy his meal. If you could be a character in any film who would you be?

Grizzly Man. Because I enjoy being consumed by the thing I love the most.

I have been following your work since 2004, around the time you started the Polite Winter project. That was one of the things that really inspired me when I thought about creating Booooooom. I like the idea of an on-going visual conversation between artists over several years. What was that experience like for you?

Wow, did I really have a hand in the creation of Booooooom? Polite Winter was a nice way for me to keep in contact with my friend, Kenichi Hoshine, who lives in New York. It was also a good outlet for me to experiment with images and materials. Looking back on it, the experience was kind of like playing Words with Friends: after sending my solution to Kenichi across the country, I impatiently waited for his response. But upon seeing it, I’d feel the pressure to come up with something worthy… I’ve been so confounded that it’s been my turn to respond for 5 years.

I had never seen Kenichi Hoshine’s work before that, and two years ago I curated my first art show and was able to bring Kenichi’s work to Vancouver! Also, I’m sure my friend is cheating at Words with Friends, last week he laid down the word OURARI. Smart people don’t even know that word and my friend is dumb!

Stylistically your work has changed a lot since then, but there seems to have been a big shift in your creative process too. What are you thinking about when you make work now?

I’m thinking about the nature of things. The process is much more philosophical, frequently elusive, and ultimately futile. One day I hope to come to accept the futility, so that my tears will evaporate into a vapor of inspiration.

Is there someone else’s work that you can always return to for inspiration?

Looking around my studio, I have new books by John Baldessari, Neo Rauch, Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander McQueen… I can’t point to once source, it’s constantly changing and evolving. Idolatry is forbidden.

Did you find it hard to switch from illustrating for other people to making work solely for yourself? I worked at Electronic Arts for awhile as a concept artist and now sometimes I have a hard time putting down that first bit of ink and feeling like it’s an honest line.

The switch was relatively easy for me — I had a backlog of images and ideas that were waiting to be brought to life. Thus, the craft of illustrating filtered into the work from Kindling in 2009. I guess it took me some time to get to the inherent nature of the mark, as opposed to being tasked to create the illusion of a mark. That’s why the work has changed so quickly. Once having exhausted the reservoir of images, I had to start investigating the nature of what it is that I have to express.

Over the past couple years I’ve shifted the focus of Booooooom quite a bit, luckily there are enough people willing to change as the site changes that it continues to grow. Do you feel like there is a similarity between that and the path you have taken, gaining a massive following in comics and now shifting to the kind of work you make now?

My website was gaining a fair bit of traction even before comics in 2000 – it was featured regularly on the big art and design blogs of the day like Pixelsurgeon, Design is Kinky, and others. The comic covers were but one aspect of a varied commercial art career . . . but I guess it makes for a good story. It’s an easy narrative to follow. But to be more accurate, my current paintings can be traced back to the sketchbook work I was making from 2000-2003. Since I stopped illustrating in 2008, I’m meeting people now who had no idea that I did comic covers. There’s some crossover, but I’m beginning to find that the audiences are distinct: the fans of art and design don’t necessarily care or know about the comic covers, and the comic fans don’t necessarily follow the art world. And that’s OK.

They sent me out an advance copy of your new book “Rebus”, it’s enormous! How do you feel when you go through this collection of your work?

Yes, it is big… swollen with images. If you tickle the spine, the cover gets extra hard. But it’s a terrific size, just the right scale and heft for a proper monograph. It gets the job done.

What’s next for you?

Checkout ovmlove.com for a few teaser images. Other than that, I’m always painting and teasing things on twitter.com/jamesjeanart

I’ve seen you do really quick drawings, I was hoping you could make a sketch in a minute or two that I could use for this interview? It could be a drawing of yourself or relate to something we talked about.

OK!

Thanks for talking with me James!

Hey, thanks for support and daily bits of inspiration!

If you’d like to win the signed copy of James Jean’s new book REBUS, leave a comment here with your best Scrabble word, if you don’t play just that’s ok, just make one up (it worked for my stupid friend).

I don’t play scrabble. But one of my favorite words is Defenestrate, which I learned in my 6th grade Latin class. It means to throw someone out of a window. Most likely to kill them, which was how the Romans liked to roll.

James Jean is an amazing artist and I need this book to fill the void in my heart that knows I will never be rich enough to own an original piece.

which i put down as a JOKE thinking it meant “to text someone lewd comments and photos of yourself” but really it means “the fourth of the seven canonical hours, or the service for it, originally fixed for the sixth hour of the day taken as noon.” so that’ll learn me.

used in a sentence: if idolatry is forbidden, then you’ve caught me looking at this book and sinning during sext services.

I played the word ‘phoniest’ in a game yesterday, it ain’t the funniest word ever but I scored a muthatruckin load of points :) james is my hero, I’ve got five of his prints adorning my walls plus I have skrewl for my dribblings and rift. Please please please pick moi

SOLUBLE – I had some lucky letters so I got to use all my pieces on the first word!

phon

jezebel!

Yoshi

It’s really not very elegant but my word of choice is ‘zits’. I was playing Scrabble a few days ago and used it twice in two games. It’s good for when you’re running out of vowels, you don’t have much space to work in and you need to stop your friends from using that triple word score.

Amber

scrabble word: axolotl

gia

nocheeeeeeee, thank

Veronica

physics :-)

lost.ghost

word: predominant
trying to deliver the message, who will be the winner in the end.. ;)

CosbyCow. I was disqualified (probably because the W spilled off the playing surface), but still felt like a true winner.

Clement Ducerf

this artist is something… already love is drawing in moleskine sketchbook but here theses painting really have something more…very deep, very powerful….
Well i’m not english native but my word will be “AWESOME” ! :)

Shakespeare invented like thousands and thousands of words we still use today so I think I can at least give one a go. Here it is “DRIGGLES.” I think it sounds at least somewhat plausible as an actual word.

Easton S

“Dendrofilous” is a cool word i learned today but is not a valid scrabble word. That is irrelevant. Im going to go with “Glabella”-The space on your forehead between your eyebrows. I dont have one

Nezar Nielsen

“wowzers”!

Marie

“Skylark” definition:to frolick. awesome word.

AWL

hiccup

Joanna

SURREALISM

Na

Quiz on a tw 72points. I had to wait for a u and blocked my opponent with a d underneath (to make id) in the hOpes of getting a u. I won that game by 10 points. Would’ve lost without quiz haha

purdoozler. if i was playing balderdash right now i’d probably define it as “a member of the feline family when displaying the contentment of a perfect comfortability”. if i was playing scrabble i’d probably try and bullshit that definition in the same way…

Once some friends and I were playing Scrabble the old-school way and decided to only allow words with sexual connotations (we’re very mature), and at the end someone came up with “mulestation” which is pronounced like a cross between “mule” and “molestation”. We allowed it, and it is my favorite.

I’ve been following James Jean for years and years now but this is the first interview I’ve read. I’m glad to know my favorite artists is funny as well!

my favorite word for anything right now is ‘betwixt’
and it would make a great scrabble word, I think. Always hard to cram those x’s somewhere.

Brett

I fucked up someone’s life with ‘DELTOIDS’ the other day. It’s not flashy, nor is it filled with huge multi-point letters, but when I dropped that big bitch across two TWs and a DL, using all my letters in the process, my opponent knew the game was all but over. Delt smash, baby.

Jesse Wilcox

my best word i ever did in scrabble was quizzical on a triple word score

I’m following him since around then too Jeff. He’s one of my favourite artists and i already have some of his printed matter, but it seems like i’m not able to get this one, because i live in the little tiny country called the netherlands.

My word:
WALLYDRAIGLE – The scientific term for the little spiral at the end of a pig’s tail

Awesome word!

Hannah Roisin

axolotl is the ultimate scrabble word. just like james’ paintings i’m entranced by them. + i’m pretty sure x is a 10 point letter.

Kevin Par

I’m not an avid scrabble player but when I do get the chance I like to throw down the word “POOP.” :)

i can study sasha grey’s asseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary all day!!

Naomi

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

Angela

quickly

It is a simple word that gains a lot of points, especially when combined with colored squares and/or when used to build upon another word.

oreka

‘Kitsch’- meaning tastelessness or bad taste in Art.

lol when I used this word in Scrabble, my friends were yelling at me and insisting that this was NOT a word; thank God for Google lmfao. And so, this word DOES NOT, in no such way, apply to James Jean lol. His name should be seen as the opposite of this word because his work displays only EXCELLENCE and SIMPLICITY yet, complexity at the same time. I LOVE James and he is SUCH an inspiration to me.

Win or lose, I’ll be getting this book ;D

mmatt

Hello!
“fireants” was the final word that defeated the computer in scrabble (the computer game)and forever placed humans on the board
humans-1 robots-0

Whisky!! That’s my word, not what I drink!! ;-)
In France we drink wine!
I love James Jean! Thank you so much for this interview, that’s very interesting!

Moasty

It’s not my best word ever but last week I won a crapload of points for tagging “stonier” onto the end of “quest” (making it “quests”). Triple word score, seven-letter bonus AND the extra points from “quests”!

Azure. It was the last word played, hit the triple word score and helped my brother beat me at Scrabble by wiping out a 50+ point deficit… Now all he has to say to get me riled up is “Azurrrrre.” Which he does. Often.